Should Casinos become Smoke-Free?

In the state of New Jersey in Atlantic City there was organized East Coast Gaming Congress which takes place each year. On the meeting there was discussed state of affairs on the regional gaming market. However, there was not touched the subject regarding secondhand smoke exposure inside casinos in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The subject is quite important because at the moment workers and patrons are not protected by law from the effects of tobacco smoke.

Health experts say that now is the time to think about it in order to implement such smoke-free laws in casinos like in other public places. In casinos should be created healthy environments for workers and everyone who visits it. Secondhand smoke exposure at workplace puts at risk people’s health and may cause a number of diseases which may be prevented.

The 2014 Surgeon General report revealed that long-term exposure to secondhand smoke may result in a stroke. Earlier there was found that there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. The one and the only way to protect people from its negative effects is to ban smoking in indoor spaces.

Recently the Journal of Tobacco Control published a research by CDC, which reveals that workers in casinos where indoor smoking is allowed are at higher risk for cardiovascular diseases, even when smoking is restricted to certain casino zones or when high-tech ventilation is employed.

In the Atlantic City’s casinos totally are employed 50,000 people and the issue of protectiong them from secondhand smoke is extremely important. Moreover, most casino patrons do not smoke.

Today in the USA there are more than 500 smoke-free casinos. For example, Win-River Resort and Casino in Redding, California, is totally smoke-free casino and its manager says that this does not affect business at all because smokers just go outside to smoke. So it is a very good idea to make people smoke their cheap cigarettes outside.